


The King Who Met Death Face-to-Face

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Bedtime Stories, Death, Family, Gen, Loss, Morbid Fascination, Obsession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-17 04:27:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15453324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Roger tells his uncle a bedtime story.





	The King Who Met Death Face-to-Face

The King Who Met Death Face-to-Face

“Do you want me to tell you a bedtime story?” Roald, the newly crowned king of Tortall after his father’s abdication, asked Roger, his nephew and ward now that both the boy’s parents were dead and buried in the Conte crypts in Corus. Not yet having been favored by the gods with a son, Roald was determined to treat Roger as one, and he imagined that Roger would appreciate a bedtime story before he was tucked into bed just as Roald once had, though, for Roald, it had always been a nursemaid who told him tales at bedtime, since neither his father nor his mother were inclined to waste time on stories.

“No, Uncle.” Roger’s brown-black hair stirred in the mild mid-August, flower-and-sea-scented breeze wafting through the open window of his bedchamber in the most recently built wing of the Summer Palace–the one that had been erected after the civil war that had blighted the country centuries ago during the reign of another Roger. “I’d like to tell you a bedtime story if I may.” 

“Of course you may.” Roald beamed indulgently at his precocious nephew. “Go on and share your story with me. I can’t wait to hear it.” 

“Once upon a time,” Roger began with the obligatory phrase for a bedtime story, “there was a king who lived in a great palace. He had just come to the throne after his parents died in the Sweating Sickness. The realm was rotten with plague around him, but that didn’t stop him from going hunting in the forest every day.” 

“Kings love their hunting, don’t they?” Roald ruffled Roger’s hair, wondering if the boy had based the king–who enjoyed hunting and was new to his crown–on Roald himself. 

“This king did.” Roger’s blue eyes glinted with mingled mystery and mischief. “At least he did until the events of this story.” 

“Now you’ve captured my attention.” Roald’s own gaze twinkled like summer stars at his nephew’s charm. “What happened next?” 

“One day when he was resting with his knights and soldiers during a hunt, the king heard a rustling in the forest,” Roger went on, smug as a dog gnawing a bone at having captivated his uncle with his tale. “He decided to investigate the noise, and, though three of his bravest knights begged to accompany him, he refused them and rode toward the source of the sound by himself. Who he found changed him forever.”

“Was it a powerful mage?” Roald guessed, familiar with the characters that tended to populate bedtime stories and figuring that a mighty mage was more likely to make a grand appearance in a forest than a beautiful princess. 

“No.” Roger’s smile was more for his own amusement than Roald’s as if he knew a secret joke that Roald didn’t. “It wasn’t a powerful mage, but it might be created by a powerful mage or so some people say. It was a skeleton who could walk and talk like mortal men but couldn’t eat or drink since he didn’t have a stomach so anything he tried to put in it would have spilled out of his decaying ribs. Bugs crawled on his bones, and there was no skin left on them.” 

“That must have been a scary sight.” Some of Roald’s good cheer waned at the grim picture of death his nephew painted. 

“Yes, the king was so horrified when he came face to face with this skeleton that his heart froze in his chest.” Roger’s grin had become almost chilling but Roald blamed that on the flickering candlelight that cast half his features into shadow. “Then he remembered that he was king and demanded to know who the skeleton was.” 

“Ah, and how did the skeleton answer when challenged?” prompted Roald once his nephew’s Player’s pause had been allowed to last long enough to be sufficiently dramatic.

“The skeleton was silent for a moment.” Roger was quiet for a moment as if to recreate the skeleton’s silence before sating Roald’s curiosity. “Then he spoke in a voice so soft it could have been leaves whispering in the wind, saying, ‘As you are, so I was; as I am, so you will be.’ By those words, the king realized that he was meeting a skeleton who had once been a king. In that way, the king met his own death face-to-face, and he was forever different. After glimpsing his own death in the woods, it was said that the king never laughed, never hunted, and never feasted again. Knowing he would die, he had lost his joy in life, and that is the end of the story of the king who met death face-to-face.” 

“That’s a sad ending, Roger.” Roald’s forehead furrowed. Worried that perhaps his nephew was still haunted by the deaths of his brother and sister-in-law, he suggested gently, squeezing Roger’s shoulder, “Death can be hard to handle and feel impossible to understand. Maybe a priest of the Black God could help you make sense of it.” 

“I don’t need a priest.” Roger scowled at his sheets. “I’m just telling a story I heard, Uncle. I was told that it became popular after the first outbreak of Sweating Sickness in Tortall when people were grappling with the idea that even a king could die.” 

“I think that’s enough discussion of death for one evening, nephew. Now it’s time for you to rest that weary head of yours.” Roald nudged Roger toward his pillows and assured himself that though Roger’s present preoccupation with death was disconcerting, doubtlessly his morbid fascination would fade with time. It must not be unusual, after all, for a boy who had lost both parents to obsess over death until he found some peace–as much as anyone ever could–with it. Wrapping blankets snugly up to Roger’s chin, he offered a traditional nighttime benediction for children. “May all the gods bless you in your sleep and grant you sweet dreams.” 

“Sweet dreams, Uncle.” Roger curled under his covers, and Roald should have felt comforted watching him. Instead he feared that he would probably spend hours tossing in his bed, imagining the naked horror of meeting a skeleton in the forest.


End file.
